I was at the local library glacning through their book sale section, and stumbled upon this book 1001 Ways To Cut Your Expenses. I picked it up, and started thumbing through it and liked what I saw. I bought the new-condition book for a dollar. Many things I already knew and practice such as #406-Don’t get optional coverage on auto rentals (because it is usually covered on your regular auto insurance), or #510 Quit playing the lottery, or #340 Keep cars longer and #345 Buy a good used car rather than an expensive new car. There are some outdated ones such as #577 Buy stocks in round lots (it’s really not expensive to buy odd lots these days). And then there is the strange #97 Get a goat (it will mow your lawn, and give you milk and cheese (eeewwww). The book is crammed with ideas and organized into sections (Home, Shopping, Big Ticket Items, Relationships, Family Finanaces, Your Career, Leisure, Later Life, and Putting Savings Into Action). This is a cool book!Read more…

I plugged in my new Acer laptop computer, and charged the battery. Even plugged in, the screen has a horrible flicker. Not sure what is wrong. I am going to try calling Acer tomorrow. I just bought it Friday, and I am hoping that the folks at Acer aren’t going to be complete buttheads about getting the thing fixed. The thing flickered out of the box. Maybe I can exchange it at Staples.

First of all he was a great boxer. But how many world heavyweight boxing champions go on to be successful in completely different field. His George Foreman Grills are great. Yeah, I know he didn’t invent it, but he was smart enough to pick a product to promote that was a quality device, and made a fortune for himself. I had a couple of his grills until we bought our house, and it had a Jennair grill built into the counter. I just saw a commercial for his new G5 Next Generation Grill and it looks pretty cool. I think the 5 removable grill plates for making waffles, cooking paninis, grilling, baking, and griddle cooking are great idea. If I didn’t have the Jennair already, I would buy one of these.
George Foreman is a freaking genius!

I was out of town for Thanksgiving, so I wasn’t able to do my usual. Normally I leave my house just before 5am, and head to the Circuit City that is about 4 minutes away. I am usually torward the front of the line. I wait in line until 6am when they open the doors. I head in going after the things likely to disappear first, and go from there. After Circuit City, I head to K-Mart or Target, or Sears, or wherever, and am usually to work by 8am.
But this black friday I was visiting relatives in Washington, PA. I knew they had Walmart, but was told they had a Best Buy, and a Circuit City. But when I got down there, I found the Best Buy and Circuit City were about half an hour away. I wasn’t sure what other stores they had. My relatives had ads for all the stores, except for Walmart. So I started going through the ads. I decided I didn’t want to drive half an hour to hit the Best Buy or the Circuit City on top of getting up so ugly early to be there an hour before the doors opened. So I made a list of stuff I wanted at Officemax, Office Depot, Staples, and Target. The items I most wanted were a laptop computer, and a DVD recorder.
I set the alarm clock for 4:30am. When the alarm went off, I got up, got dressed and headed out the door at about 4:45am. When I got into my car, the clock said 4:15am. I checked my watch, and it also said 4:15am. I guess the alarm clock had the wrong time. I headed to Walmart, and was surprised there was no line. I ran inside, but didn’t see any ad circulars. I went back toward the electronics, seeing lots of people around. I headed back towards the front, and asked for a circular. The woman took me up to the other door, where there was a guy just unloaded new circulars. I got one, and started looking through. I was underwhelmed. The only thing that I was remotely interested in was a laptop computer for $488. I looked at my list and saw a couple other places had cheaper laptops. So I headed across the street to see what stores were there, and found a Target, and an Officemax. Niether of these stores had the laptops. I headed back to Walmart and inquired about laptops, and found that they had had 25, but have given out tickets for them at 8pm the previous evening, so all of the 25 laptops were gone, and it wasn’t 5am yet. So no laptop computer for me this year.
Target opened at 6am, and Officemax at 7am. So I headed for Target, and was in line at 5am. I was talking to the people there for a bit when I found out there was a Staples sote nearby. I knew they had Acer laptops for $449 and no rebates necessary. So I headed there, and there were only about 8 or 10 people in line there. Some of those people wanted laptops, so hopefully they had enough. When the doors opened at 6am, I asked where the laptops were, and they said in the corner. I and the others headed there, and I got a laptop. I also asked for an external 100gig USB harddrive that was $79 after rebates, and the guy gave me a harddrive, adn took me to the register. At the register, I realized teh guy gave me a 300gig internal drive. I asked him to get me the External drive, and he brought me back a 100gig external drive. The cashier rung it up, and I asked about a rebate, and she said there were no rebates. I thought cool till I noticed the drive rung up and $149. I asked about this, and she checked and said this was a different 100gig external drive. She asked the guy to get the correct drive, which he brought back. She returned the first drive, and charged the second drive, and I was set. I stuck the stuff in the trunk of my car, and headed back to Target which should be open now.
At Target, I headed in and went to the Jewelry department. I bought a Timex watch for $12.99 to replace my Seiko Titanium Kinetic watch that was stolen a while back. (I have another 20 year old Timex, but it suddenly started losing time). I headed over to the DVD section and got some DVDs that I wanted for $5.88 and $8.88. A couple of these are intended to be Christmas gifts. I also bought an indoor outdoor remote thermometer which will be nice to see how cold it is before I go out to clear the snow from the driveway.
Next I headed nextdoor to wait in line at the Officemax. There were only about 10 people. I wanted a Lite On DVD recorder to replace the junky Centrios DVD recorder I bought last year. While the Centrios had a great price of $129 at Circuit City at last years Black Friday, Officemax had the Lite On DVD recorder for $79. I asked, and no one in line seemed to be going after the DVD recorder. Great! One lady in line seemed to get interested in the DVD recorder after hearing me talk about it. At 7am, I got inside, and asked where the DVD recorder was. The guy said against the wall, and pointed. I headed over there, and was looking when another employee asked what I was looking for. I told him the Lite On DVD recorder, and he told me they hadn’t come in. But then I spotted 2 Lite On Dvd recorders on a shelf. I grabbed one and the other lady grabbed the other one. I also got a spindle of 100 DVD-R disks for $12.99 after rebates. I checked out, and I was done.
So the list of bootie:Acer 3613LCi Notebook Celeron M 370 1.5GHZ 256MB,40GB CDRW/DVD $449.94
Maxtor 100GB external hardrive $79.94
Lite On LVW1105 DVD Recorder $69.99 (after rebates)
100 pack Starlogic DVD-R media $12.99 (after rebates)
Timex Watch (T15367) $12.99
Oregon Scientific wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer (with alarm clock) $12.99
Various DVDs for $5.88 and $8.88

After Hurricane Katrina, I donated $50 to the Humane Society to help the pets that were stranded and abandoned in New Orleans. Yesterday I heard that the Humane Society filed a law suit regarding the welfare of poultry in slaughter houses. Great! The Humane Society has turned into frigging PETA! I am not going to donate any more money to them. We already have enough over-the-top flakes at PETA, we don’t need another whacko organization!